Her Shower of Roses

I've been praying a Novena to St. Therese for the past couple of days. She is a particular favorite saint of mine, neither my patron nor my confirmation saint. I usually tell people I adopted her into my life because I fell in love with her story and her message.

I've heard about how individuals who pray a Novena to St. Therese may be granted a rose, as a sign from her that she is listening and is taking your prayers to God. There is a lot going on in my life at the moment, from looking for summer jobs, to being away from my college friends for a dreadfully long time, to planning for the upcoming school year, to even possibly wondering if God is calling me to a relationship. And so, I started the Novena with the intentions of finding a summer job, and yearning for God's plan in this potential relationship.

After the fourth day of the Novena, during which I was hoping I'd get some sign from Therese, my mom mentioned that our rose bushes out front were absolutely full of blooms, and my brother commented that the yard smelled like roses. I had absolutely no idea at all that we had rose bushes in our garden, or that they were blooming, so hearing the talk of roses I immediately thought St. Therese had "sent me my rose." Usually, the instances of people getting roses as part of this Novena were always totally unexpected and random. Now, apparently it is rose season because I've seen several other rose bushes around, but I don't want to move toward superstition and start analyzing the roses and the signs and whether they're actually from Therese. The timing was enough for me to thank God that He was hearing my prayers. 

Two days after that, I was hired at my first summer job. As for the relationship part, well, I haven't really heard anything direct about that, but maybe that's the point. No one randomly gave me a rose and when I started the Novena I made sure to keep the mindset that I wasn't praying it just for a rose and not to expect a rose. Thus, the allusion to roses all around me gave me comfort that God was hearing my prayers. Maybe I'm not meant to know all the answers right now, but He is taking care of me. I have a couple days left of the Novena, so who knows? Maybe I'll get my rose or God is encouraging the virtue of patience.